Immanuel Lutheran School is excited to be adding several new wonderful teachers to our faculty this year. We will be allowing the teacher a chance to introduce themselves a bit here online in our Six Questions Series, and they are all excited to get the chance to meet our students and families in person in the coming weeks.

We are pleased to have Miss Kristin Malcolm join our faculty this year as our new 5th grade teacher. Many of our students and families will remember Miss Malcolm, a Hillsdale College graduate, who served as our teacher apprentice in 2015. Miss Malcolm is delighted to return to the ILS community and join our Upper School faculty.

Please join us in welcoming Miss Malcolm to ILS, and stay tuned for features on our other new teachers in the coming days!

1. What will you teach at ILS/what is your role at ILS?

I will teach all 5th grade subjects, excluding Latin, P.E., and Music.

2. What does classical education mean to you?

Classical education understands the nature of children (reflected in the Trivium) and the nature of the world (reflected in the Quadrivium and the humanities), and it binds these two together in the relationship they were meant to form—a relationship which is made possible by, and is always directed toward, the Creator of both the learner and thing learned.

3. What are you looking forward to most about joining the community at ILS?

I am looking forward to all the blessings that come with involvement in a Christ-centered community. One of the things I am most looking forward to is staff devotions before school each day. During my time as a teacher’s apprentice at ILS, this short but rich time of guidance and prayer was heartening and enlightening, and it provided the right foundation on which to begin each day.

4. Who was one teacher who inspired you?

I was most inspired by my high school Literature teacher, who was also my volleyball coach, role model, and friend. I still keep in contact with her, and it has been a privilege to think about, and communicate to her, the role her teaching played in forming my own desire to teach.

5. What is your favorite book? (What book has most inspired you?)

My favorite book always seems to be whichever one I am currently reading. One of my very favorites, though, is Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Life Together. It is small but packed with truth. I can point to my first reading of this book as the moment in which I first began to understand what it means to love my brothers and sisters in Christ, and it is for this reason that I continually return to it.

6. Please share one thing families wouldn't already know about you.

I have a horse fund. I set aside a small part of my paycheck each month in the hope that I will someday save enough to buy a horse. (To be clear, I did not grow up with horses; in fact, I can count on one hand the number of times I have ridden a horse. But I have always been awed by these majestic animals.) Donations are welcomed! :)